The Sun may axe more workers today with the latest retrenchments affecting those in the daily's production department, malaysiakini was informed this morning.

According to a source about a dozen of them are expected to face the action.

In another development, already retrenched staff set adrift after their sudden and shocking retrenchment last Friday have been unable to make their income tax clearance.

The laid-off staff were issued with retrenchment letters but not with the EA form required by the Inland Revenue Department for income tax clearance.

They were told by the management to clear their income tax before expecting compensation. Several of the affected staff said today have had to travel outstation for this purpose only to be turned away for not having the proper documents.

Negotiation preferred

When contacted, The Sun's corporate affairs manager Lim Soon said the retrenched staff would get their EA forms 'in a day or two'.

In another development, former members of The Sun 's National Union of Journalists branch claim that the newspaper's production workers have indicated their preference to negotiate instead of picket against any retrenchment.

They said the production workers' union had already sent a message to the management expressing their intention.

When contacted, the National Union of Newspaper Workers general-secretary R Chandra Sekaran declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the Human Resources Ministry office has said that the controversial retrenchments at The Sun were being investigated by the Labour Department with several officers from there visiting the paper's office this afternoon.

Yesterday, Human Resource Minister Dr Fong Chan Onn said his ministry was looking into whether the mass lay-offs were done contrary to proper procedures as claimed.